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Some of the content discovered for the Island Years box set is simply too good to confine to confine to CD!
John Martyn - Live at the Hanging Lamp is a limited edition vinyl only release available exclusively through Uvinyl
This 180 Gram vinyl edition is taken from The Island Years, the forthcoming 18 Disc box set celebrating John Martyn’s glory days on the Island Records label, beginning in 1967 with London Conversation and going all the way up to the last album he recorded for the label, The Apprentice in 1987.
Live at the Hanging Lamp is a superbly recorded, previously unrealised recording capturing John Martyn at an early peak and stylistically in transition between his third solo album Bless The Weather and the innovative Solid Air.
This solo concert was recorded on 8th May 1972 at The Hanging Lamp Folk Club in the crypt of St. Elizabeth’s Church just off Richmond Hill. It was a small intimate venue seating around 150 people on wooden benches in the vaulted crypt. The atmosphere was tremendous and after playing his acoustic guitar John then ‘plugs in’ and delights the small audience with outstanding electric performances of Sugar Lump, and experimental versions of I’d Rather Be The Devil (that was subsequently to appear on 1973’s groundbreaking Solid Air album) and Outside In (later recorded for his exceptional album Inside Out the following year).
Live at the Hanging Lamp finds John at a pivotal point in his career and is an outstanding recording of a very young John discovering the electric effects that he was to become famous for as he started to earn a reputation as a live performer not to be missed!
“I’m trying to pull electric into acoustic and acoustic into electric.” John Martyn told Melody Maker in February 1972 as he rushed through the offices at Island Records studios in a converted church just off Ladbroke Grove.
At twenty three years old John Martyn was then a fresh, gentle looking young man with wispy curly hair, earrings and a back catalogue of predominantly traditional acoustic songs but all that was about to change!
Having released two solo albums 1967’s London Conversation and 1968’s The Tumbler, John married and recorded two albums with his wife Beverley, Stormbringer! and The Road To Ruin in 1970. In 1971 he recorded his third solo album Bless The Weather which marked a shift towards a more electric based sound that inspired him to explore and experiment with the use of effects.
The full set list for this rare concert is –
SIDE A
01: The Easy Blues
02: Bless The Weather
03: May You Never
04; Don’t Think Twice
05: Back To Stay
06:Head And Heart
SIDE B
01: Singin’ In The Rain
02: Sugar Lump
03: I’d Rather Be The Devil
04: Outside In
05: The Glory Of Love
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